About John Carter

John Carter’s father was a Morgan Stanley stock broker. One day during high school, John came home from the mall where he was working at a store making cookies. He had saved up $1,000 over the course of a few months and his dad told him that he and some of his friends were going to buy “some call options on Intel” the next day. With his father’s direction, he bought 10 call options at $0.75, and sold them a few days later for $1.50, doubling his money. He was hooked and has been trading ever since—going on 25+ years now.

Carter studied at the University of Cambridge, England, and then graduated from the University of Texas in Austin with degrees in History and Economics.

Through college and beyond he focused mostly on testing various online trading strategies and became quite adept at making money. Yet the road was not always easy and he learned his lessons the hard way like many day traders often do.

Carter eventually found a trading system he was satisfied with. In 1998 he left “Corporate America” behind to pursue full-time professional trading. After a few years of trading on his own, he eventually grew tired of day trading by himself in his office and chatting with his Arrowana (a large fish). He started to seek out other traders and post information online which led to the launch of Simpler Trading, Simpler Options, and Simpler Stocks.

He is also a Commodity Trading Advisor with Razor Trading. His book, “Mastering the Trade” was released in January, 2006 and has since climbed the charts on Amazon.com Carter has also been featured on CNBC, CME Group, Bloomberg, Fox Business and Tasty Trade.

SPX Is at The Crossroads. Which Way Will It Turn?

The markets are at a very interesting place right now. Let’s focus on SPX, the S&P 500 Index. You will notice a few things in the chart below. First
look at the trading range over the past four weeks. In that time period it has traded in a very tight 40-point range. You will also see that price has
hovered around the Voodoo tree line. This is a strong resistance level. The Bollinger Bands are as tight as they have been in years. The Simpler Trading
Squeeze indicator is in a squeeze. The Bollinger bands are also one of the indicators used inside the Squeeze indicator.

What does all of this mean? It means SPX is currently in a low volatility environment. Which can be confirmed by the current low VIX reading of 11.80.
These are typically followed by a high volatility period. Yes, price could continue in this tight pattern a little longer. But eventually one of two things
will happen. Price will breakout above the Voodoo tree line at 2182.32, and the squeeze will fire long. If that happens you should see a nice move up,
which will be fueled by the shorts having to cover their positions. The second scenario is price breaks down below the recent lows of 2147 and the Squeeze
fires off short. The squeeze could even fire short before the 2147 price level. Then you could see a corrective move to the 2115 level.

No one really knows what will happen exactly. But if you let things play out, and let price dictate the direction to trade, you will be able to take
advantage of the move in either direction. Make sure you have an open mind, are prepared and have a plan.

If the move is a breakout, look for symbols already in an uptrend, like Prologis Inc (PLD). Symbols already trending in the same direction of the breakout tend to move
quicker. See the Chart below.

If the move is a break down, look for symbols that are already in a downtrend and close to breaking below a support level, like Gilead Sciences Inc (GILD). Symbols already
trending in the same direction of the break down tend to move quicker. See the Chart below.

After starting as an engineer, Tucker moved into sales management. He started trading in 1980 when he worked for AMD, and lost money in 2000 and 2008, when he had financial advisors managing his portfolio. He became an active trader in 2009.<br />
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Take your ETF trading to the next level with Tucker's&nbsp;<a href="http://www.simplerstocks.com/public/trend-trading.cfm">Trend Trading System HERE</a>